Virginia Tech Massacre Anniversary: School marks five years since deadly campus shooting

(CBS/AP) BLACKSBURG, Va. - Monday marks the first year Virginia Tech hasn't suspended classes in the five years since the 2007 shooting rampage that left 32 people and the gunman dead.

PICTURES: Virginia Tech Remembers

The massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

Provost Mark McNamee, who chaired a committee that planned memorial events in the years after the shooting, said the return to classes reflects the lives of those killed.

"Their passion for education, their desire to do good in the world, their commitment to their disciplines come through so strongly that we felt being in classes was one special way of remembering them onward," McNamee said. "This is what they did, this is what we do, and it's important to us."

"My sense is that our students and our faculty are ready for it," he said.

The day will be remembered in other ways on the college campus, in Washington, and by alumni across the country.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell was scheduled to address a campus-wide candlelight vigil on the Drillfield which is the heart of the campus. McDonnell has also issued a proclamation recognizing April 16 as Virginia Tech Remembrance Day.

The proclamation honors the 32 lives that were "hastily taken, leaving absences that will never be filled and a profound sense of sorrow in the lives of those impacted," the proclamation reads in part.

At 9:43 a.m. Monday - the time when gunman Seung-Hui Cho began killing 30 students and professors at Norris Hall - McDonnell was calling for a moment of silence in Virginia. The Capitol Square Bell Tower in Richmond will then toll for each victim.

At Norris Hall, where Cho also killed himself, an open house was scheduled. The former classroom building is now home to the Center for Peace Studies and Violence Prevention.

The center was established after the killings at Norris Hall in 2009 "to transform a place of pain, suffering and violence that can prevent future violence," director James Hawdon said. The center promotes student volunteerism and "nonviolent compassionate communication" techniques, he said.

Hawdon, sociology professor who was on campus during the 2007 carnage said April 16 anniversaries have evolved from profoundly somber days to "a strong sense of community and a desire to work towards making the world a better place. We hope we can make a difference."